1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an apparatus for mounting a steerable ground engaging wheel of a vehicle, and is particularly directed to an apparatus for mounting a steerable ground engaging wheel which is also driven.
2. Background Art
The front ground engaging wheels of a front wheel drive vehicle are driven and are steerable. These steerable driven ground engaging wheels are mounted in different ways. Typically, a steerable driven ground engaging wheel is mounted on a spindle connection. The spindle connection is connected to a yoke by upper and lower ball joints. The yoke is fixedly connected with the vehicle frame. The upper and lower ball joints support the spindle connection for rotational movement about a steering axis relative to the yoke.
Commonly, the upper ball joint has a tapered ball stud received in a correspondingly tapered hole in the upper part of the yoke. Similarly, the lower ball joint has a tapered ball stud received in a correspondingly tapered hole in the lower part of the yoke. Each tapered ball stud is located in a predetermined position in its tapered hole in the yoke independently of the position of the tapered ball stud of the other ball joint in its tapered hole in the yoke. Thus, the position of one ball joint is independent of the position of the other ball joint.